What’s goose-bumpy, pale and mortified all over? Me, welcoming the kickoff of bathing-suit season in the scariest place on the fashion planet: the dressing room.

On March 20, it will be spring in San Diego. The Carlsbad fields are full of flowers, the Padres are full of hope, and the stores are stuffed with women’s swimsuits. And if you are a woman in need of a bathing suit, you are probably swimming in angst just thinking about it.

“How often are you stripped down in a room with florescent lights and a 360-degree mirror,” said the aptly named Susan Swimmer, contributing fashion features editor at More magazine. “You see more of yourself than you ever do in the harshest light possible. It certainly pushes every woman’s body-image button to shop for a swimsuit. It’s kind of like the moment of truth.”

Is there any relief for San Diego women who love the beach but have a complicated relationship with beachwear? After a light breakfast of gum and Altoids (Just kidding! It was egg-whites and Altoids), I went shopping. I dropped in on three popular local boutiques (Pilar's Beachwear, Gone Bananas Beachwear and Sun Splash Swimwear), one department store (Macy’s), and one discount store (Target) to look for a suit that suited me. Here’s the skinny on my moments of swimwear truth.

The stores: Best selection? It was a tie between Gone Bananas in Mission Beach and Sun Splash Swimwear in Pacific Beach. The former was floor-to-ceiling bikinis (from kinda-itsy to teeny-weeny), while the latter had a much bigger selection of one-piece and tankini options. The department stores could not compete with the boutiques, but Macy’s had more suits than Nordstrom. Target was cheaper than everyone, but only if you are in the market for a suit that will dissolve before Labor Day.

While the Gone Bananas dressing rooms had helpful three-way mirrors, the rooms opened directly into the store, which was a little too communal for me. (Howdy, fellow shopper! Don’t mind the back fat!) The Necessary Evil Award goes to Target, where a two-mirror system gives you a cautionary view of your backside, whether you want it or not. The Best Dressing Room award goes to Sun Splash, where the rooms were tucked in the back and equipped with nice benches, sturdy doors and no view.

The experience: Because I hate swimsuit shopping, I have always avoided swimsuit shops. How wrong I was. At the three boutiques, the expert salespeople saved me time and agony by finding flattering styles that I would have avoided because they were outside my Mom-suit comfort zone. A zone that usually features suits with skirts, but only because no one makes bloomers anymore.

“Our (sales) girls are trained to look at body types and find a style that will flatter our customers,” said Sun Splash owner Kari Rubin, who found me a draped Badgley Mischka one-piece that was comfortable, yet swanky. “You have to keep an open mind. You can’t tell anything by looking at a swimsuit when it’s on the hanger.”

The cheerful Gone Bananas saleswoman coaxed me into a two-piece number, a wardrobe risk I’ve avoided since the late ’80s. As promised, the wider bottoms of the lilac Luli Fama suit did not dig into my love handles (Yay?), and the absence of fabric stretching over my tummy was surprisingly minimizing. I would never wear a two-piece in public, but it did not make my cry in the dressing room.

The quietly efficient saleswoman at Pilar’s (also in Mission Beach) recommended a strapless black bandeau suit from Rachel Pappo. It looked like a large hair scrunchi on the hanger but was very slimming once I squeezed into it. And unlike the aggressively formfitting Miraclesuit swimsuits that so many other women swear by, this one didn’t leave me with flab-displacement issues.

I thought of my Spandex angels during my solo jaunt to Macy’s, where I spent five sweaty minutes stuck (literally) in a torturous Swim Solutions suit that clearly had it out for me. This would never happen with bloomers.

The survival tips: Don’t go swimsuit-shopping after a big meal. Don’t go when you’re tired, cranky or need a suit immediately. Shave, moisturize and slap on some self-tanner. And if all else fails, swing by Sun Splash, where Rubin’s rescue Chihuahua, Chanel, is waiting to greet you. Chanel doesn’t care how you look in your Mom suit. She loves you already.